Performance-based Pay for K-12 Teacher Compensation in Taiwan?

Performance-based Pay for K-12 Teacher Compensation in Taiwan?

Governments play a significant role and invest large amount of funds in providing education for their citizens. From an economics standpoint, investments are expected to be cost-effectiveness as in the private sector. Producing higher student performance is considered to bring great returns for society (Hanushek, 2005). Studies indicate that the quality of teachers is a key element affecting student achievement (Hanushek, 2005; Sclafani, 2010; Spring, et al., 2012; Tuck, Berman, & Hill, 2009). Based on input-output logic and the economics principle mentioned above, better teacher quality (input) should lead to higher student performance (outputs). That assumption and along with accountability suggests that government should focus on improving the quality of the teaching force. However, effective teachers are hard to attract and retain in schools because there is shortage of them (Sclafani, 2010) partly due to young, talented people tending to not respect a career in teaching (Hanushek, 2005). One factor here is that pay is a critical consideration (Hanushek, 2005; Sclafani, 2010). Thus, recent US education reform has examined alternative teacher compensation strategies or incentives such as performance-based or merit pay.